


Family Ties

by JenT



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Multi, multi relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenT/pseuds/JenT
Summary: This started out as a Bellarke meet cute when Clarke gets stuck in a small town at Christmas and somehow evolved into this cutesy little story.    The google doc title of this is "Tomater".   Because I'm five.





	Family Ties

It’s Clarke’s second Christmas since her dad died. It’s her junior year of college, she is driving home after finals week. Friday night traffic is the worst she has seen in a while, she has her Christmas playlist on full blast in the car. She watches the lights of town fade in her rearview mirror as she travels, she doesn’t know where she is going. Her mom thinks she will be home Saturday afternoon, she is planning on calling her Saturday evening. She will make up some lie then, decide later when she is planning on being home. 

She doesn’t want to go back to the empty house. Her mom will have decorated for Christmas without her or her dad. She will put on a brave face for her, Clarke doesn’t want to see it this year, not when she can barely keep it together herself. Lexa is going to Europe for the spring semester, told her maybe it would be best if they ended things before she left. Wells will be there, but he will be focusing on his dad, who is thinking about running for Governor next election cycle. She just doesn’t want to be a burden. She just wants to be alone in her misery.

She is singing along to Do They Know It’s Christmas, thinking to herself, no they don’t know it’s Christmas they don’t celebrate it, when she feels her tire go ‘thump, thump, thump’.

She pulls over to the side of the road on a dark, two lane highway in the middle of nowhere Virginia and climbs out of her car. She takes one look at it and climbs back in her car. She is about to pull out her phone to call Triple A when she sees the red and blue lights behind her. She keeps her phone in her hand, she has been hearing about these fake cop stories, and just her luck, she would find one.

She rolls her window down as he approaches, he is already holding up his badge. He hands it to her, she looks at it. “You can call 911 and verify it if you want.”

She does just that, talks to a very nice lady at the dispatch office, tells her she has a flat and that an officer is with her right now. She reads off the badge number, and name. The operator verifies that yes, he is one of theirs, and she couldn’t be in better hands than with Officer Blake.

“I would offer to change that for you, but the rim is busted. You are going to need a whole new tire and rim. I can call the tow truck for you if you’d like.”

“You don’t need to do that, I have Triple A.” 

“Basic package? Gives you so many free tows a year? There is only one tow truck driver in town, you call Triple A, they will call her and they will charge you. I can get her out here for free. Well, it might cost me later.” He smiles at her then. It’s a warm smile, one Clarke thinks she can get lost in. Of course, it sounds like he might have a girlfriend, or something. 

He pulls out his cell phone and makes a call.

“Hey, can you bring the tow truck out? I have an out of towner with a flat tire, looks like her rim is shot.” She hears the woman on the other end talking, she sounds exasperated at him. She thinks she hears something like “let me be the judge of that.”

“Ok, ok, I know! I will send you the coordinates when I hang up. Yeah, whatever.”

“Trouble in paradise?” He sends the GPS coordinates through and puts is hands back in his pockets. 

“You want to come sit in my squad car with me? It will be warmer.” She turns her ignition off and follows him to his car. She has never been in a police car before, it’s quite different than she expected.

“My name is Clarke Griffin by the way.”

“Oh, yeah, I never asked for license and registration did I? I saw you skid when your tire went out so I knew what had happened. And you know my name.”

“Tow truck driver is your…”

“Girlfriend, on and off since high school. We split up for a while after we graduated but we got back together after she graduated from college. Her name is Raven. She is a mechanical genius.”

“Smarter than MacGyver?”

“And Samantha Carter.” 

With the interior lights on and the red and blue flashing lights she can make out his dark hair and the smattering of freckles on his face. The beard that makes him look hot as fuck. It’s a shame his girlfriend is coming to tow her car.

**  
Raven arrives a few minutes later, she climbs out of the tow truck and takes one look at her car. Clarke and Bellamy had gotten out of the police car and walked back to her car.

“You were right!” She reaches in her pocket and pulls out what she thinks is a $10 bill, but she can’t tell for sure. “You can buy me Starbucks with that later.” She hands it to him and goes to work hooking her car up to the truck. 

“I can take this back to the garage, but I can’t get a new rim until morning. Are you from around here?” Clarke panics, because no she isn’t from around here, and she really doesn’t want to call her mom to come pick her from the middle of nowhere.

Bellamy and Raven must be able to read the panic in her eyes but no one really says anything. “Clarke do you want to ride back to the garage with me in the truck or with Bellamy?”

“I’ve never ridden in a tow truck either, so let’s just make this a night of many firsts for me.”

On the way back to the garage she finds out that Raven wanted to be a pilot until a car accident left her with a leg injury that made that dream impossible. She did go to college, graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, but when her high school mentor, Sinclair, passed away he left her his garage and she decided to honor his memory and came home to take over. She had wanted to build a life away from this place, but came back anyway. “And that was when Bellamy and I got back together.”

“My girlfriend went to study in Europe, told me it was best if I didn’t wait for her.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

**  
Honestly, she had thought Raven was kidding when she said Starbucks. She didn’t think this town could possibly have one. But, there it was, a few blocks from Raven’s garage. It turns out Bellamy was on his way home when he found Clarke on the side of the road, so after getting her car to the shop, the three of them headed to Starbucks for some overpriced coffee. “My treat, you saved me a headache dealing with Triple A.”

They told her more about themselves, about Bellamy’s sister, about some of the friends they have around town. What they don’t mention are their parents. She thinks maybe she isn’t the only one avoiding parents this year. The barista ends up shooing them out the door when she closes at 10. “Clarke, you aren’t staying in that hotel tonight.” 

“Raven, I can’t impose.”

“You aren’t imposing, he can move his Ancient History crap off the bed in Octavia’s room, it won’t kill him.”

“Hey! I’m right here!”

She should feel weird about going home with two strangers but, somehow they don’t feel like strangers, she feels like she’s known them forever.

**

Seeing their little house was fun. It turns out it was the house Bellamy had grown up in. She could tell because there was still a tire swing in the tree in the front yard. Inside the front door were markings with “B” and “O” for growth charts. In the living room on the fireplace mantle are pictures and she is able to put names with faces. There is a picture from his sister’s graduation with him, his sister and a woman who must be their mom. There is only one other picture of that woman here. She is in a picture from Bellamy and Raven’s graduation with them, another woman who must be Raven’s mom. Then it is all pictures of their friends. 

She can tell the wedding picture is their friends Murphy and Emori because that is indeed one bad ass tattoo. There are other pictures of other friends, she heard their names, but they all ran together after a while there were so many of them. Friends from school, friends from college, it is a very lively bunch.  
She settles on the bed in his sisters old room and tries not to think of the life she could be living if she lived in this little town in the middle of nowhere. She also tries not to think of the noises she hears coming from the other side of the house.

**  
When she wakes the next morning, it takes her a few seconds to get her bearings. The sun is coming in the window above her, the blankets are warmer than her apartment. She smells bacon and hears the soft sound of the radio coming from the kitchen. She pulls her clothes from yesterday back on and runs her fingers through her hair. She was in bed when she realized she had left her luggage in her car at the shop, so all she had were the clothes she wore yesterday.

She stumbles into the kitchen, the clock on the stove says it’s 9:15 and Bellamy is standing there in plaid pajama bottoms with no shirt on. He really has no right to walk around like that in front of her if he has a girlfriend. She wants to say something to him, but she doesn’t want to draw attention to it. It is their house.

“Raven went to look at your car. The washer and dryer are free if you want to throw your underwear through a quick cycle. I have a sweatshirt for you on the couch, too.” She looks over the breakfast bar to the living room couch and sees a Ravens SuperBowl Sweatshirt from a few years ago.

“You two really have no filter, do you?”

“Nope, I raised my sister and I’ve known Raven since sixth grade. Filters went out the window about the time she got her first period.”

She laughs then, and sits down to a plate of breakfast. He sits down beside her and they just start to eat when Raven comes in the kitchen door from the backyard. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“Bad news?” Clarke says, she has always hated this game.

“I can’t get your rim until Monday.”

“Well, then what is the good news?”

“I’m free all weekend, we can hang out!” Raven sits down and steals Bellamy’s bacon, he grabs it back.   
“I can make more!”

“Please do, I’m starving and you never make enough bacon in the first place. Clarke, I brought your suitcase back so you can have clean clothes.”

“Raven, I thought you were hanging out with us today?” Bellamy says to her as he gets back up to go back to the fridge and stove.

“Nope, you can’t pay me enough to help you guys paint a nursery. You’ve had every weekend off since Thanksgiving, if we spend anymore time together I might kill you. I’ll hang with Clarke.”

“How’d you swing that?” Clarke asks him.

“I worked Thanksgiving and I’m going to work Christmas Eve and Day. My Captain’s son and his husband just had a baby. I’m working so Captain Miller can spend his first holiday’s with his grandon.”

“Who is actually Bellamy’s biological nephew.”

“Raven, don’t start.”

“‘I’m just saying, what happens in five years when Octavia realizes what she has done? I still can’t believe you are so accepting of this.” Clarke watches the exchange in awe. During the spat she learns that Captain Miller’s son, Nathan who they both just call Miller, was one of their closest friends in school. He and his husband, Jackson, also a last name, had a baby via surrogate and Octavia carried the baby. They don’t actually know which one is the father, she was inseminated with sperm from both. And it is that baby’s, Jason, nursery he is going to paint today.

**  
Bellamy leaves after breakfast. Clarke and Raven settle on the couch with blankets and Netflix. They settle on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Sometime during episode 5, Clarke starts opening up more about herself, why she doesn’t want to go home. Why she doesn’t want to call her mom. Why part of her even kind of just wants to stay here. Raven puts her arm around her.

“I never wanted to come back here. When Sinclair died, he was the only adult who gave a damn about me. My dad split before I was born, my mom was an alcholic. Bellamy and I used to make Miller swear not to let his dad know how bad things were for us at home because he was a mandatory reporter. But Sinclair left me the garage, and I needed to make things right by him. We talk about opening some kind of center for kids around here who were like us. We haven’t really figured it out yet, but we think it’s why we both came back even though we both could have, and should have left.”

Clarke rests her head on Raven’s shoulder and they fall asleep sometime around episode 7. Bellamy comes home during episode 10 and clicks it off. They wake up when he puts another blanket over them. “Do I need to sleep in Octavia’s room tonight?” he asks. He is laughing when he says it, but Clarke kind of thinks he might be serious.

**  
Octavia comes over for dinner and she learns the rest of the story about the surrogacy. It seems like a pretty personal story to be telling a stranger, but personal still doesn’t seem to be a word these people know. She has decided she likes it. Half way through dinner, Raven gets a call about a tow. She grabs her stuff and heads out the door. Octavia follows her since her car is blocking Raven’s in the driveway anyway.

Which leaves Clarke alone with Bellamy for the first time since early this morning, and it’s just as awkward. He sits across from her in the recliner and she studies him, she knows now he raised his sister because like Raven’s mom, his mom had a substance abuse problem. She died a few years ago. 

“Why did you decide to become a cop?”

“It was either that or be on the other side of the law, figured this was better for me in the long run. I thought about the military for a while, but getting sent to a war zone isn’t on my list of things to do with my life.”

“You and Raven seem to be pretty…” she stalls searching for the right word, they are fun, they clearly care about each other, but she gets the impression if the relationship ended today neither would be heartbroken.

“We aren’t the love of each others lives. We know that.”

“So, you’re exclusive friends with benefits?”

“It works for us. Raven is the smartest person I have ever met. I would protect her with my life, just like I would my sister. If she met the love of her life tomorrow, I would step aside gladly. As long as that person treats her the same way, of course.”

“And she feels the same way about you?” Clarke remembers the conversation from earlier, when Raven told her how she didn’t even want to come back home in the first place.

“She says so, I have no reason not to believe her.”

Clarke feels like he is giving her his permission to flirt with his girlfriend, and it just feels weird. It feels even weirder a few minutes later when they both get up to go back to the kitchen. Their hands meet at the refrigerator door and he looks at her a little too long. She has to turn her head to avoid his gaze. He turns away and goes back to sit on the couch, where they finish the movie they were watching.

When Clarke wakes up a few hours later, Bellamy’s head is on her shoulder and Raven is standing above them, laughing. She is trying not to be too loud, but she is failing miserably. When Bellamy wakes up, he sits up and Raven goes to sit on his lap. “Who wants to try and figure out what the hell is going on here?” Clarke finally says.

“I have no idea.” Raven says. “We can ignore it, or we can talk it out.”

“Or, we don’t even have to actually talk at all.” Bellamy gently puts Raven on the couch, then grabs Clarke’s hand and then Raven in the other hand and pulls them both toward the bedroom.

**

10 years later

 

“What?” It was Ms. McIntyre’s first year teaching kindergarten. She wasn’t normally one to gossip, but really this was something else. “Jason’s biological mother is Penny and Julia’s aunt?” She had the two girls in her class, knew they were half-sisters, but that was all she knew up till now.

“Yes.” Mr. Green looked at her with a gleam in his eye. She was pretty. This was the most interesting thing to happen to him in years.

“And Penny and Julia were born a day apart. And they don’t have the same mother, but they have the same father?”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t a Maury love triangle/who’s the daddy situation?”

“Nope.”

“Please tell me the guy is at least hot.”

Monty pulls his phone out, finds a picture from a few summers ago at a party, shows it to her. Harper whistles. “Yeah, he qualifies. What is it like at home now?”

“Raven met Shaw a few years ago. Fell madly in love, took Julia moved out, they got married. Bellamy and Clarke are actually talking about getting married now, but they can’t seem to decide if they want to go through with it or not. They keep saying they don’t need it. They are fine the way they are. The girls are sisters and BFF’s. They are 5, they don’t think anything is weird. It’s what they know.”

“And here I thought the most peculiar thing about this town would be it only had one Starbucks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't you ever watch Season 1 of The 100 and think to yourself, "self, why on earth did Clarke and Raven fight over Finn when Bellamy was standing right there!" Cause I sure do. So, have a fic with no Finn, where they decide to not even try and fight they can just share.


End file.
